EVANSTON, Ill. (Jan. 25, 2018) — With 22 confirmed cases in 2017 to date, and just one case in 2018, the world is on the brink of eradicating polio, a vaccine-preventable disease that once paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children each year.

Rotary is giving $53.5 million in grants to support immunization and surveillance activities led by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).

More than half of the funds will support efforts to end polio in two of the three countries where polio remains endemic:

The Phoenix Fund is a social entrepreneurship
fund focused on creating economic opportunity in the world's poorest countries.
Through seed capital grants and loans, the Phoenix Fund makes strategic
investments to implement economic development projects led by local entrepreneurs.
These types of unproven and innovative programs often encounter difficulty
attracting funds from large foundations and government agencies. Phoenix
Fund is a market-driven, business-minded approach to creating sustainable
small businesses and open marketplaces that are at the core of any successful
community.